


I Think I Love You (Isn't That What Life Is Made Of?)

by chasing_the_sterek



Series: Inktober 2017 [20]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dancing and Singing, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Mush, Humming, Humor, John Watson Loves Sherlock Holmes, John didn't know Sherlock was home, John is too cute for his own good, LOUD music, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Mornings, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Sherlock is so gaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy, bedhead, i keep putting in the fluff tag bc it's SO FLUFFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 18:52:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: Sherlock wakes to loud music.Earsplittingly loudmusic, he amends almost immediately, glaring blearily at his door as the sound leaks incessantly beneath it. John Watson is a horrible man.///In which Sherlock is trying to sleep, John thinks he's home alone, and even though Sherlock's parents don't actually feature, they influence quite a lot.





	I Think I Love You (Isn't That What Life Is Made Of?)

**Author's Note:**

> Not-today's prompt was "overwhelm/alone". God knows you can tell already I didn't go for the angst side of this.
> 
> Also inspired by the song _I Think I Love You_ from the TV show the Partridge Family, which I haven't actually watched (yet).

Sherlock wakes to loud music. 

_Earsplittingly loud_ music, he amends almost immediately, glaring blearily at his door as the sound leaks incessantly beneath it. John Watson is a horrible man. 

"Turn it down," he shouts, but he can't even hear _himself._ What hope does John have? 

He lies scowling at the ceiling for 1.37 minutes as the song finishes, organising the most scathing thing he can possibly think of in his head - 

Which he never gets to use, since the song restarts the second it ends. Set on loop, on Youtube. Sherlock hadn't known John was technologically literate enough to know how to do that. 

Exasperated, tired, and still simmering at a healthy level of irritation, he resorts to throwing things at the dividing wall. 

Nothing. 

Again. 

Fine. John is the one who made him get out of bed, and so John is the one who will have to suffer his ire. The man brought it upon himself. 

And yet, as soon as his door opens a crack the world filters through, and Sherlock is left frozen. 

John looks so soft, the dressing gown Sherlock bought him for his birthday months ago on the brink of falling off a shoulder, hair spiked every which way and eyes still half-bleary. His mouth is quirked into an honest smile, fingers reciting the long-choreographed dance of tea-making. His head bops up and down a little and his feet shuffle like his body wants to dance but he won't let it. 

_Doesn't want to spill the tea,_ Sherlock realises, and then wonders why his heart gives one of those fond flips it's grown so fond of since John moved in. 

Sherlock was fully intending to slam his door if John didn't spot him immediately, plasterboard be damned. He was going to shout until John's face went stony and flat with hurt and suppressed anger and he left for either his room or a walk and took the noise with him. He was going to insult the man's height and features and quirks and poke at every nerve he had ever found. 

All of the vitriol dies in his throat, quiet and almost ashamed, because now the cruelty Sherlock didn't hesitate to mentally assign John, purely for his music, seems just that - cruelty. 

Because John still hasn't noticed him, and he doesn't want to sacrifice this, the way the sunlight has canted over his face and chest and lit up his eyes and his hair. Sherlock leans against his doorway and tries to memorise this ethereal creature humming and singing alternately as they bustle about his kitchen. 

He takes the captured moment into the heart of his mind palace, more careful than if he were holding water, a handful of sand, paper-thin crystal - he places it, pride of place, in the direct centre of his mind, and tries to ignore all of the connotations. 

He thinks of his parents, then, and it would be inexplicable if not for his realisation that this is the room he shuffled all of the tiny snapshots of their marriage into. He grew up with loving parents, a loving family; it was just the world that had hated him. 

Sherlock thinks of the warmth of their voices when they spoke to each other, the infinite amount of inside jokes they shared, half of which they had forgotten the origins of. He thinks of the way they bumped hips and the way his father brought his mother food and drinks when she worked for too long and the way his mother would notice when his father was struggling, with anything at all, even from just a snapshot of his voice, and would know exactly what to do to help. 

He thinks about the hundreds of other tiny things he's stored away as a kid, thinks of the conversation with Mummy he'd had where she promised, _hand on heart,_ that one day he would have something like that too, thinks of his father leaning over her shoulder and admitting that he might have to wait a while for it to come. 

He looks at one John Watson, who surprises him constantly and weathers the worst of his bad moods and puts up with his biting insults with nary a word to defend himself. Who jokes and teases and humbles him and makes sure he eats and knows what to do when he's sinking under all the data input, overwhelmed. Who pisses off Mycroft for Sherlock's amusement and not only listens to his deductions but learns from them, applies Sherlock's methods where he can if he deems it necessary but doesn't try to become an echo of him. Who bribes him with cake because he knows it's going to work better than threatening to withhold posting his bail. 

Sherlock thinks, _enough waiting._

And then, as if on cue: 

John turns around, then, spots him. 

Completely freezes. 

"Hello," he squeaks. 

Sherlock hadn't known his voice could go that high, or sound that embarrassed. John Watson really is full of surprises this morning. 

"Good morning," Sherlock replies. It's only the second time he's spoken since the day before yesterday, and his voice is a low rumble. 

John's face has flushed - interesting. "I thought you were out," he manages. 

One cup of tea being made. Sherlock's coat is in his room because he couldn't be arsed to hang it up last night. John probably called out anyway, just to check, and with no response and prior experience with Sherlock's admittedly peculiar schedule. . . 

Alone, indeed. 

Sherlock thinks of his parents and the sunlight on John's irises and the strange flip-flop of his heart whenever he looks at John wearing the dressing gown Sherlock bought him even though he has another one. 

"Evidently," he agrees, and smiles the way he wants to, wide and warm and too-fond.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really love the line _"John Watson is a horrible man."_


End file.
